The list of ex-tyrants who go into exile for fear of persecution and then enjoy their old age with impunity is long. Think, for example, of Idi Amin, the ‘butcher of Uganda’ from the 1970s, who only breathed his last in Saudi Arabia in 2003. Or look at ex-Ethiopian Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam, the leader of the Red Terror in the 1980s, who is still known to live in Zimbabwe. The big exception in this regard is the ex-president of Chad, Hissène Habré, who died on Tuesday at the age of 79.
Habré – sometimes referred to as ‘the Pinochet of Africa’ – will go down in history as the first ex-dictator convicted in another country for crimes against humanity. In 2016, he was sentenced to life imprisonment in Senegal – his refuge since 1990 – for the reign of terror he led as president of Chad in the 1980s. Victims, relatives and human rights organizations then celebrated the verdict as a milestone. Habré eventually died in a hospital in the Senegalese capital Dakar, where he had been taken from captivity because his health had deteriorated sharply. According to media reports, Habré has died from the effects of the corona virus.
Under Habré’s leadership, an estimated 40 thousand people were murdered for political reasons in Chad between 1982 and 1990 and many tens of thousands were tortured. The secret service that performed much of the executioner’s work was under the direct direction of Habré. Torture methods included suffocation, rape, and electrocution.
Habré was born in 1942 in the desert-like north of Chad to a family of nomadic Muslim herders. Animosity between the north and the predominantly Christian south of Chad led to a long civil war in 1965, five years after the departure of the French colonizer. Habré would work his way up to the highest ruler of the country in the battle.
After graduating from school, he first started working as a civil servant in Chad. After that he also went to study law in Paris: a high-ranking French soldier thought it was appropriate in Habré and arranged a scholarship for him.
After his return to Chad, Habré came into contact with armed rebel groups through his role as a government negotiator, and he decided to start a combat group of his own. For many years, apart from many domestic opponents, Habré took on the troops of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, who had set his sights on Chadian territory. Before, during and after his takeover in 1982, Habré received support from France and the US, who saw him as a useful ally against Gaddafi.
However, in 1990 Habré was overthrown by army chief Idriss Déby, who served as partner of the West until his death in April this year. Habré sought refuge in Senegal in 1990, where he could live undisturbed for a long time. But after political changes in power in Senegal and under unremitting pressure from Chadian victims and human rights activists, Habré was arrested in 2013. A year and a half later, he was tried by a specially created court chamber. The tribunal received the blessing of the African Union and was co-financed by the Netherlands.
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